May 1953 Palestinian Refugees

“Now, from my own experience I would like to say that I asked, and made it a point to ask, some Arab refugees: ‘Would you go back to Israel and live under the Israeli Government if you could get your home back?’

“I asked that again and again, and I have yet to find the first refugee who would say that he would go back to Israel and live under the Israeli Government, but every single one said that ‘It is our right’…In other words, there is not a personal desire that I have found on the part of the refugees that they want to go back and live under Israel, but he wants to have and it is right to say that he down not want to do it, and that is the key to the point, he does not want another person to decide whether it is his right to decide.”

Source: Testimony of Dr. May Roos to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee May 1953